Satsangs

Satsang is a compound Sanskrit word that means “keeping the company of the Self.” The Self, Awareness, is the true nature of everyone and one keeps company with it by continually meditating on it in many ways. One of the most effective methods involves discussing non-dual teachings with someone who has realized his or her identity as the Self, to get clarity with reference to Self inquiry. The satsangs posted here are the questions of many people around the world who are interested in enlightenment and find that Vedanta is their preferred means of Self knowledge. Since I am a teacher of Vedanta, a time tested means of self inquiry, I am qualified to reply to these questions.~James Swartz

ShiningWorld Reader

Cathy: So you mean it is enough to see how attached I was to the idea of relationships, and that’s it? I just needed to see that? And not yearn for that blissful state, because it is just an experience after all, even though it seems to be a better one?

Ram: Yes, yearning for experience keeps you from addressing the reason why unpleasant experience – let’s say loneliness, which is the cause of this messy relationship soap opera – troubles you. If you long for a relationship, for example, it means that you don’t understand that the aloneness of who you really are is not loneliness. Even when you have a relationship, you are alone and often lonely, how lonely you feel when your husband does not understand what you want, for example. If you want the bad feelings to be gone, you have to figure out how ignorance is creating them, not take them ipso facto for granted. Once you see how ridiculous it is to want something that you can never have – or which you already have – you do not invest any more attention in it. The negative emotions that have developed over your lifetime will have to play out, but they will not be reinforced if you see them as generic ignorance working through you. When you long and yearn to have it different, you just reinforce the belief that they are real – in this case that you are separate.

It’s natural to think that you should have something different, but it is much more spiritually beneficial to feel the pain – pay the piper, as it were – and know that by this acceptance you gain freedom. When you accept it, feel the pain, the pain dissolves. The self is there behind every emotion and accessible when you face it.

There is no objective solution, because ignorance is the problem, so yearning is a waste of time. It may be that when you have worked it all out, you will be blessed with the dispassion to see what kind of a man is good for you and what kind of a man you are good for, but you cannot count on it. You just have to clear the causal body. It is not glamorous work, sad to say. Generic ignorance is driving all the good and bad in the world. Once you understand how it works, you can relax. Thank God we are all alone. Imagine how it would be if you did not have this permanent buffer between yourself and the world. You would go absolutely mad. Freedom is accepting the aloneness of awareness as your primary identity. The beauty of it is that while the emotions are you, you are not the emotions. When you long for different emotions you are saying that you are not awareness. Awareness sees them, it sees the pain, but it is unaffected.

So the solution is to turn your attention away from the emotion that is troubling you at any moment and put it on your self, on awareness. If this is too abstract, this means to contemplate whether or not you are actually alone and incomplete. You know the answer: you are whole and complete.

This should detach you from the emotion and it will either dry up or shrink to manageable proportions.

Contacting Shining World

For years I have happily and diligently responded to communications on the topic of Self realization. Since the publication of my book, “How to Attain Enlightenment”— currently in its third printing —and the success of this website, the volume of emails has increased considerably. Unfortunately, owing to a busy schedule of teaching and writing, I am no longer able to answer all the emails I receive in a timely fashion. However, my wife, who is also a teacher, and several well-qualified teachers we have endorsed are available to answer emails on my behalf. I encourage you to send them your questions.
— James SwartzContact Us